I’ve been reading the archives for maybe a year or so, and I’ve gotten SO much out of them! I’m super excited to be joining up.

I’m a young adult equestrian who wants to go into professional novel editing, as well as writing my own high fantasy series. :P

As for my church history, I grew up Southern Baptist before my mother and I fell into an IFB church when I was 12. I soaked it all up, despite misgivings, and took everything to its logical conclusion, resulting in massive amounts of stress for me. I also got Lyme Disease in high school, and proceeded to burn out spectacularly with the weight of not just an advanced school program, but all of the church’s expectations on me. Add Lyme messing with my brain, and it was a pretty hellish time.

After graduating high school, I focused on working my way out of fundyland, bit by bit. Moving to a different state and having an excuse not to go to that church anymore definitely helped. It’s been such a slow process and I can’t believe how I didn’t see some of these obvious inconsistencies before! I’m super into logic and asking questions, and it’s been so satisfying to finally pursue those red flags my young teenage brain was throwing at me.

Now I’m bedbound due to the Lyme, but I’m in treatment and hopefully recovering eventually. For now I’ll just try to enjoy life as the liberal, bisexual, atheist, HAPPY girl I’ve become! :D

Just out of curiosity, are you planning to bring your experiences as an (ex) fundamentalist into your writing? I think fundamentalism could be an interesting theme to explore in a fantasy setting, as well as religious power structures.

I'm currently working on a fantasy series -- mostly for fun -- something for my kids to read and enjoy, and hopefully learn something from (I may try to publish it at some point; I don't know). I'm exploring patriarchy, rigid traditionalism, and spirituality, but haven't really delved deeply into religion or religious power structures at this point.